The present invention relates to implants and implanting methods adapted for use with subjects such as human beings, animals, or the like.
Thus, while the present invention is particularly designed for use with human beings and other mammals, it is also possible to visualize situations where the present invention may have utility with birds, fish, reptiles, etc.
One of the problems encountered with subjects of this type is the problem of administering to such a subject medicinal agents such as antibiotics, drugs, and the like, in a predetermined dosage and over a relatively long interval. At the present time, considerable inconvenience and disadvantages are involved in administrating such agents. For example such agents may be taken orally or they may be injected into the body, but such oral administration and injections must be repeated from time to time, and initially when such agents are administered in such conventional manners the subject receives a relatively large concentrated dose which gradually disappears until another large dose is administered to again undesirably raise the level at which the medicinal agent is received by the body, with the rate of administering the agent to the body gradually diminishing until the next injection or oral administration.
A further problem encountered with subjects of the above type is in connection with localizing the administering of the required agent in such a way that the desired agent will be surely received by the part of the subject requiring the agent. At the present time certain medicinal agents are distributed throughout the entire body although it is only required that they be received by a particular part of the subject.